


Feel

by Magnetism_bind



Category: Equilibrium (2002), In Time (2011)
Genre: AU, Angst, Biting, Blow Jobs, Crossover, Emotions, M/M, Rimming, Rough Sex, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-21
Updated: 2014-03-21
Packaged: 2018-01-16 10:43:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1344556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Magnetism_bind/pseuds/Magnetism_bind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five Emotions Preston Can’t Remember Feeling Before</p>
            </blockquote>





	Feel

**Author's Note:**

> Written for A a few years ago.

_Sorrow_

The emptiness Preston feels now when he wakes in the night is worse than before. Before he didn’t know he was empty. Before he didn’t care. Now he lies awake in the dark, staring endlessly at the night.

The empty bed beside him is a constant reminder of his past failures. The ribbon tucked away in a book on the bookshelf is a reminder of his recent ones. The wounds are fresh, the scars, puckered and old. They both ache.

He gets up and slips out of the apartment after checking on his children. They sleep peacefully, like they do every night. Their memories of this will fade in time. They will grow into a new world and become more than he could ever dream of. In time they will forget, and perhaps that’s wrong. They should hold on to the memories so this doesn’t happen again. It must never happen again.

Preston runs down the street under the streetlamps. It’s allowed now, though still considered strange. There are other people out walking. A few stores are still lit and open. There is life where before there was restrained silence.

He runs along the street, feet thudding on the pavement. Chest heaving until his heart is going to burst and he stops, resting his hands flat against his thighs. If only he could stop. He wants to stop. How can he stop?

A car pulls up alongside him and Preston tenses, even as he knows he’s not in uniform any more. He doesn’t have to have papers to walk at night.

The window rolls down. “Are you all right, cleric?”

It’s almost a relief to hear the term, and see the man saying it. Timekeeper Raymond Leon steps out of the car and closes the door. He surveys Preston thoughtfully.

“I suppose I shouldn’t call you that any more. Now that this,” his gaze encompasses the streets, the night lights, the city around them, “is gone.”

His words have the opposite effect. “It’s not gone. It’s changing.” Preston straightens up. He feels unusually informal standing next to the timekeeper.

“So it is.” Leon smiles. “And you Preston, what brings you out on this dark night?”

There’s a question in his eyes. Preston could tell him. Tell him about the empty bed, the sorrow deep and ever present, cloying in the dark, clawing at him, holding him still until he has to flee, and he knows he can never escape. But that’s weakness. It’s still hard to let himself feel that, even if it’s human.

Instead he takes a deep breath and shakes his head. There is nothing to say. Nothing. So when Leon kisses him that’s almost a relief too. Leon turns him against his car, his mouth hot upon Preston’s and Preston’s head hits the back of the car.

The sorrow’s still there underneath, but the heat takes him, sweeps him away. The night air is cool, but Leon’s warm, his hands are warm slipping under Preston’s shirt, pulling his trousers down, and his tongue is skilled and warm, wrapping around Preston’s cock, dragging him out of himself, until the night explodes around him.

Preston takes deep even breathes, trying to return to himself, but Leon’s keeping him hovering above the precipice, nails on the underside of his cock, teeth grazing at him, white hot and Preston gasps as Leon slips a finger inside him. He comes, spilling inside Leon’s mouth, sweet and messy.

Leon straightens up, wiping his mouth, delicate as a cat.

There’s still sorrow clinging to him, but Preston kisses the timekeeper again anyway.

 

*  *  *

  _Lust_

The first time was a mistake, but Preston couldn’t help himself then any more than he could help himself now. Afterwards, he remembers only vague pieces. The swish of the timekeeper’s coat against his thighs. The leather under his fingertips. Leon’s lips opening under his own, tongue sharp with desire.

Preston has never known desire like that. If he has, he’s long since forgotten it. It’s been so long since his wife had died. Then with Mary, that was only the tip of the depth of lust. He had been a child, unaware of all the things he had yet to know and feel.

Now, once again, another human is stirring those emotions within him, leaving him uncertain of what to do next. What do you do when you want someone?

For two weeks he had been at a loss, trying to decide how to proceed. And then Leon had simply invited him out for coffee.

It was still a new concept. This peaceful existence. It took time to come to terms with it.

The order of the Tetragrammaton had had to change in order to survive. They still policed the city, maintaining order, and keeping the rioters in line. It wasn’t easy and the confusion that threatened so easily to spill into blind panic made it worse.

Leon’s involvement didn’t make it easier, but Preston wouldn’t have changed that. He’ll take these moments time is giving him, keep them  and savor them as he would a lover. He’s not sure if Leon and he are lovers. The word doesn’t quite fit. There aren’t words for the feeling Leon produces in him.

He only knows when the man is lying beside him, hands on his skin, limbs entwined, the craving within himself can only be satisfied by drowning in Leon’s body.

 *  *  * _  
_

_Rage_

"You don't know what it was like." He presses Leon's arm tight behind his back. "Containing all of that, not knowing what my own mind desired. I thought it was right. I thought everything was in its place."

He’s been so wrong for so many years, and now. Now what did he have?

Preston yanks the timekeeper's arm even tighter, hearing the faint crack of dislocation. Now he’s allowed to feel the satisfaction that his own violence brings. He kicks Leon's legs further apart, settling himself.

"You're still an instrument of the system." Hesitation. Hesitation is weakness. He reaches between Leon's legs. So warm, soft, he _wants_.

"The system still works." Leon murmurs, his cheek flat against the cold stone.

Preston responds by twisting his balls. "You would say that, wouldn't you? You've been part of it for so long you wouldn't know what to do if it fell apart."

"And you're better." Leon sneers. "Unlike you, I never needed a drug to control my emotions. Or to feel when I wanted to."

Preston twists hard. “And what do you feel now?” He releases Leon’s balls, reaching for his hair, yanking it back.

“I feel how much you want to fuck me.” Leon states calmly.

Preston snorts but Leon arches back against him, reminding Preston of his erection. “That’s not what I meant.”

“But it’s what you want.” Leon presses. “Admit it.”

“So what if I do?” Preston growls. He does want it; he can’t help it. The desire wells up within him, growing more heated as Leon continues pressing against him. He doesn’t _want_ to want it though, so instead he pulls painfully at Leon’s arm, yanking it out of the socket completely. The timekeeper groans, and Preston smiles. He loosens his hold on Leon, rolling him over.

Leon cradles his arm, wincing, but there’s a look in his eyes that makes Preston tremble. “Go on then.”

So Preston does. He pulls Leon’s trousers down to his thighs. Leon’s right; he does want this.

“Here.” He takes Leon’s arm and the timekeeper flinches. Preston feels a pang, but of what he’s not too sure. Guilt? Regret? He doesn’t have time for these things, and he lets them simmer there beneath the rage. That at least he can put a name to. He ignores the man’s pain and sucks Leon’s fingers into his mouth.

Leon moans, and Preston wraps his free hand around the man’s cock, tugging it crudely. Now Leon’s moans grow louder, and there’s need as well as pain in the sounds. Preston lets the man’s fingers slip from his mouth, a strand of saliva trailing from his mouth to Leon’s hand. He positions Leon’s hand at the man’s crotch.

“Go on then.”

Leon’s face is strained and tight with pain as he eases his fingers inside himself. Every movement sends ripples of pain shooting up through his shoulder.

At last Preston stops him. He spits onto his palm and slicks his cock, positioning himself to push inside. Leon’s just gazing up at him wordlessly. If Preston still had his gloves, he would place those leather fingers inside Leon’s mouth as he fucks him. As it is, he sinks into the man until Leon’s pubic hair brushes against his own; until there’s nothing but the heart of where they’re joined. He closes his eyes for a moment and breathes deeply.

He can smell sweat and soap, as well as the brisk hint of winter in the air, coupling with the heat rising from Leon’s body beneath his own.

Preston leans down to set his teeth at the crook of Leon’s throat, jolting his cock further inside the man.

“Do it.” Leon whispers and Preston bites until blood fills his mouth and Leon’s pulling at him savagely, sobs racking his throat.

Preston comes just like that, teeth and cock and salt and sweet bitter tears that he licks from the corners of Leon’s eyes.

 *  *  * _  
_

_Envy_

In the end, he envies Leon. The man still has his construct of society. The way things are, and the way they’ve been continues on for him. In a way Preston misses that. Libria’s future is unpredictable. Every citizen struggling to decide what they want. The riots. The confusion. Sometimes he’s not sure if what he did was right.

How can one ever be sure? And yet that certainty was imperative to a revolution. Jurgen required it of him and in public Preston is as impassive as ever. He is the face of blank justice as he has always been, and that is what he would remain.

Away from the eyes of society though, he _wants._ He wants things to be as they were. He wants the future to be past already, and have this time settled into history. He wants Leon’s surety that his position in life is safeguarded by the routines his world still clings to.

He wants Leon, wants to know what it would be like to wake up beside him in that peaceful place of simply knowing.

 *  *  *

_Contentment_

The first touch shocks Preston so much, he’s frozen in place as Leon’s tongue licks slowly across his entrance. Of all the things they’ve done together, this is not something Preston’s ever thought of. He shivers as Leon continues to lick him, fingers holding his cheeks apart gently, tracing light circles around the sensitive skin. Leon’s tongue is slow, but persistent, working steadily until Preston grows more relaxed, limbs going slack against him. He has the cleric right where he wants him at last.

Leon slides his arm around him, kissing the inside of his thigh before sliding his tongue back into this crevice of Preston’s cheeks. Preston moans. He wants to bury his face in the bedding, but is it cowardly to turn away from something he wants so desperately? Something he didn’t even know he wanted, but now craves.

Leon knows exactly when to press further, tongue moving steadily inside Preston, until he’s sweating, desperate for more. Leon’s hand moves up his back, stroking Preston along his spine until he relaxes again. His cock is hard pressed against his belly, the tip leaking slowly upon the bed. Leon’s knuckles press into the curve of his leg, teasingly behind the knee.

“Close your eyes.” The timekeeper whispers and Preston does, almost gratefully to let the dark close over him. Yet it’s almost worse, not knowing where the next touch will land. Leon’s tongue is still between his cheeks, moving almost lazily now, but his hand wanders, over Preston’s back, tracing over his hipbone, dipping between his legs to stroke at his cock in a tantalizing, torturous manner. Preston keeps his eyes closed. He wonders what this looks like. What he would think if he could have seen himself like this, back in the day when Librium was constant in his veins and he had only one thought, one purpose in his existence.

He only has one purpose tonight, and it’s to allow himself to fall apart under Leon’s body. He wants this, asking for it with his responses to Leon’s every touch. Leon’s lips pause from their ministrations to press against his ass, kissing their way up his back. His cock rubs teasingly between Preston’s cheeks.  
  
Preston lets it happen, shuddering through the motions as the timekeeper kept licking him. He had never known anything could feel like this. He'd never known life could be like this. Who had discovered such sensations? Who was the first to touch another person like this? Leon’s tongue pushes further within him and Preston gasps, clutching at the sheets beneath him. It’s futile, he knows. He’ll surrender everything to Leon in the end, and the timekeeper will simply take it, leaving him spent and satisfied.

In the end, he knows the lazy lull stealing over him is something new. Something foreign, but comforting all the same. As Leon kisses his hair and presses his body into the crook of Preston’s arm, Preston knows what this is.


End file.
